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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546095">the art of scraping through</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsarewinning/pseuds/thestarsarewinning'>thestarsarewinning</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Minor Owen Harper/Toshiko Sato, POV Owen Harper, Pre-Episode: s02e01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Set between s1 and s2, Team Bonding, don't get me wrong I like Gwen but sometimes I wish the writers hadn't made her Like That, slight Gwen Bashing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:34:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546095</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsarewinning/pseuds/thestarsarewinning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“So…how did you all join?” Gwen asks, once they’re safely tucked into the corner booth that has, in the time since Jack left, become theirs. </p><p>Owen rolls his eyes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(mentioned) - Relationship, Gwen Cooper &amp; Owen Harper &amp; Ianto Jones &amp; Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>189</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the art of scraping through</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so im still on lockdown and have apparently nothing better to do with my time than obsessively watch torchwood and write fic,, this is tagged as gwen bashing but it's not like, as gwen-bashing as a lot of fics tend to get, it's really more just a cynical view on her character, but just in case that's really not your thing... </p><p>i have no right to anything, i'm just borrowing the characters to play house</p><p>title comes from the song 'someone new' by hozier</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So…how did you all join?” Gwen asks, once they’re safely tucked into the corner booth that has, in the time since Jack left, become theirs. </p><p>Owen rolls his eyes. It’s another one of her games, one of her ‘let’s-get-to-know-each-other-and-braid-each-others’-hair’ attempts, up there with ‘who was the last person you snogged?’ and ‘do any of you have partners?’. </p><p>He’d rather hoped she’d given up on them, now she’s proved she belongs and they’ve all done despicable things in the name of being a team. </p><p>The minute sigh Tosh gives, noticeable only if you were to pay attention, not that Owen is, not really, says she’s about as thrilled by the prospect of this as Owen is. Owen’s seen Tosh’s file, a privilege of being her doctor, and he wishes Gwen would grow up. </p><p>People don’t end up at Torchwood because they’ve led happy, normal lives, and if she weren’t so bloody naive, she’d have realised that by now. </p><p>The blinkers over her eyes are still in place, however, because she huffs and pulls a face, and Owen wonders if she’s ever going to learn. Maybe, back when she was a copper, they did things like this after work, only they’d all talk to each other. Maybe they all liked each other, and they’d finish a shift and have nothing else to occupy themselves with other than inane gossip and swapping the same stories about the academy or whatever crap counts for police training. The pub would be a place for that kind of trite shit and maybe Gwen’s trying to extend the experience to them too. That’d be normal, though, and Torchwood means you don’t live that life.  </p><p>Of course, Gwen has. That’s exactly why she’s sat with them now, why she sat herself at Jack’s desk one day, chin jutting forward defiantly as she tried to get her head around what Jack actually did at Torchwood and what needed to be done now he’d fucked off to god knows where. Gwen ended up at Torchwood because she’s normal, or as close to it as anyone who sees a Weevil and decides to look closer is. </p><p>Jack seemed charmed by how easy Gwen’s life was, but, right now, it makes Owen wish they’d finished up the day as normal - working together in uneasy silence, fucking up whatever act of heroism the Rift demanded before leaving one by one until Ianto was the only besides Myfanwy left. </p><p>Owen’s given up wondering why the teaboy stays much later than the rest of them; stays, still, even though Jack’s not here so it can’t be for an after-hours shag, not anymore. If it hadn’t been for that kiss, the one Ianto had wiped from the CCTV when he thought no one was paying attention, Owen would have admitted he’d been making a shot in the dark, though the lost look on Ianto’s face after Jack vanished would have confirmed how right he’d managed to be if the kiss hadn’t. </p><p>Sometimes, Owen would like to shoot Jack Harkness again. Even if that first time had felt like he’d slipped to a place you can’t come back from, fallen to some new low he’d not managed to hit before. </p><p>“C’mon, you’ve all got to have stories.” Gwen’s fingers are drumming lightly on the table, and she sighs when he and Tosh remain silent. Ianto’s still at the bar, and Owen almost wishes he’d offered to get the first round so he’d be spared the wide-eyed gaze Gwen’s now fixing them with, like it’ll make them spill their secrets. </p><p>It almost does work on Owen, it’s worked before, back when they were shagging and he’d almost liked her, because she was fun and pretty and her laugh made her nose wrinkle, but there’re some things that just can’t be pried out of him. Tosh, too, has secrets she’s managed to keep despite her innate need to be liked, even by Gwen, and Gwen might have tried to step up as leader, but Owen’s still shouldering the burden of looking after the rest of them, even if he’s shit at that most of the time. “Drop it, yeah? Not all of us got a job by wandering around the Plass looking pretty.” </p><p>“Actually,” A voice from behind them says, “I did.”</p><p>Ianto’s solemn tone belies the humour in his eyes as he sets their drinks down on the table, and Owen refuses to be impressed by his ability to carry three pints and Tosh’s vodka tonic at once. He is grateful for the drink though, and for the smile Ianto’s managed to draw out of Tosh, a snigger escaping her as Ianto drops into the seat next to her. </p><p>Gwen looks less amused, eyes wide as though, despite knowing their fearless-and-now-absent leader’s attitude and willingness to sexually harass anyone and everyone, she can’t reconcile that scenario with the image of the butler Ianto has constructed for himself. </p><p>Owen finds he quite enjoys the look of surprise on Gwen’s face, and joins in despite himself. “I think Jack still has the CCTV saved somewhere, you know.” </p><p>“Those jeans were impressively tight.” Tosh’s giggle betrays the matter of fact delivery she seems to be going for, but the atmosphere around them all is lighter than it’s been for weeks. </p><p>Even if Gwen still looks like she’s swallowed a golf ball. </p><p>“I’ve still got them somewhere, if we ever decide to implement a casual Friday.” Ianto always has made the perfect straight man for any line, and Owen laughs properly now, unable to help it. </p><p>It feels a little bit like that very first night, only without the pizza boxes or level of pretence Jack had insisted on, and Gwen must feel it too, because she focuses on her pint instead, a red blush creeping along her cheeks, and her head hangs forward. “Alright, you’ve made your point, you can stop taking the piss.” </p><p>Tosh’s smile fades then, ever so slightly, but it’s still noticeable and Owen thinks that this used to be Jack’s job, making them forget all the shit for a minute and laugh, and someone has to keep that going. “Thank you for confirming what I’ve always thought, Ianto, really. Jack might have maintained that it was the stunt with the bloody pterodactyl that got you through the door, but, finally, the truth comes out.” </p><p>“To be fair, the thing with the pterodactyl was incredible,” Tosh kicks Owen in the shin, though it’s too gentle for her to really mean it. “Suzie could never figure out how you got Myfanwy into that warehouse in the first place.”</p><p>It’s Ianto who’s unfortunate enough to be sat opposite Gwen as she chokes on her drink, though he hands her napkin to deal with the mouthful of beer she’d lost in her surprise. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” She says when she’s able to breathe again, looking at Ianto like he’s turned green again - and that had been a bad side effect of an anti-parasitic and anti-emetic combined Owen had had to give him after a particularly troubling matter with Nostrovites. “You…You put a pterodactyl- You captured the pterodactyl?” </p><p>“Mm. Not as easy as one might think.” There’s something very James Bond in the smile on Ianto’s face, and Owen thinks, not even for the first time, that somewhere behind the bland smile and suits and shooting him in the shoulder is a person Owen actually likes, not that he’ll ever admit it. When Gwen looks between them all, confusion written across her face and her mouth hanging open, prominently showing the gap between her teeth, Tosh laughs again. </p><p>Ianto shrugs when Gwen turns back to him and sips his beer. She gives him the same wide-eyed stare she’d tried earlier, and the same dry humour that started the conversation put a slight quirk in his mouth as he considers. </p><p>“I- I found Myfanwy before Jack could, set him up a bit, then helped him catch her. As for the rest-“ He shrugs again, and Owen wonders if it’s because anything more would inevitably lead to why he wanted an in with Torchwood Three so badly, and anything past that point is just an invitation for the bad memories beyond the world-domination-machine he’d kept in the basement - that much, they all knew about. </p><p>He’s Ianto’s doctor, too, he’s seen his file, or as much of it as Suzie had constructed for them from the remains of Torchwood One’s data. Lisa isn’t the worst of Ianto’s nightmares. </p><p>Gwen is still wide eyed, and it’s at times like this Owen wants to laugh at the fact she’s appointed herself leader. When things like this surprise her, she comes across as far too green to ever be taken seriously - there’s so much she doesn’t know about Torchwood, and, sure, it’s not like the rest of them know all of Torchwood’s secrets, but there’s a difference between being Jack’s new pet and being Jack’s replacement. </p><p>She’s still PC Cooper, ordering pizzas and stumbling across the Hub, still the woman who thought Torchwood existed to catch murderers and solve the mundane, human problems the police manage. She’s not exactly the right material to fill Jack’s boots, and they’re not exactly willing to admit they need to replace him, none of them are. </p><p>Owen, in his more charitable moments, will at least acknowledge that Gwen’s been the only one to even think about taking the reigns, and it is necessary, though Ianto wouldn’t want to even if it was offered, Tosh wouldn’t be able to make the choices they’ve all seen Jack make and hated him for, and he- Owen’s first thought is that he’s not the right sort of leader, shooting Jack being enough evidence of that, though other times he thinks, maybe- </p><p>He could step up officially, could challenge Gwen to it, but there’s no point. </p><p>It takes half his pint for him to mull this over again, because all he ever does nowadays is think, his mind never shutting up, whether it’s about how it had felt to pull that trigger and watch Jack fall to the floor; if Ianto can handle the vaults on his own now, because there are more and more weevils that they haven’t managed to tag and re-release yet; or if he would have been happier never hearing the name Torchwood in the first place. Sometimes he thinks that maybe he should have thought harder about accepting second in command after Suzie died. </p><p>He didn’t join Torchwood because he wanted Jack’s office. He’s happiest in his medbay, and there are days - generally, the days when they’re a bit too late for the latest victims of whatever aliens or tech the Rift has dropped at their feet; days when, if they’re lucky, there’s some poor bastard left kneeling at the wreckage with a lost expression Owen recognises from having worn it himself, only, unlike the day Jack Harkness had stood in that hospital room, they get retcon and a lie - when he thinks he’d be happier still working in A&amp;E, even if it would mean dealing with patients and his non-existent bedside manner all day, every day. </p><p>He’d spend eighteen-hour shifts stitching people back together from accidents caused by the usual, everyday dangers that are laughable now, looking back, and then he’d go home, to- To Katie, and-</p><p>He’s here, however, and he has his medbay and he’s Owen, ruthless bastard and bit of a twat, not Dr Owen Harper and merely another victim of Torchwood’s ineptitude. He’s not just Owen, medic and bane of Ianto’s life, though, not really; Gwen might be trying to fill Jack’s shoes and chair, but it’s his phone they’ve tied the Rift monitor to and when it goes off - whilst Gwen is still pondering how exactly someone catches a pterodactyl and uses it against Jack Harkness to get themselves a job, and Tosh is laughing at her, and at Ianto - it’s him who finishes his drink first. </p><p>“Rift opening on Hemingway Road in fifteen minutes; Tosh, you get back and monitor from the Hub - Ianto and Gwen, with me."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'd love to see what you guys think,, leave me a comment?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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